Adobe Lightroom allows users continued access after license expires

In response to all the controversy that its move to a subscription payment system created, Adobe had promised that it would find ways to ensure Creative Cloud customers' work wasn't 'held-hostage' if they let their subscription lapse. This was particularly pertinent for users of Photoshop Lightroom - since it arranges your images and the corrections made to them in a database.

Now, Adobe has confirmed that its latest Lightroom update has made it possible for subscribers to keep accessing their images and edits, and continue using some limited functions of Lightroom once a license for it has ended. Core functions: notably the ability to use the Develop module, are unavailable once the subscription lapses, but users retain the ability to view, organize and export images. The Quick Develop module is also still available for use.

While this in itself is a considerable concession to those users unhappy with the subscription model, it should be noted that even after moving to subscriptions Lightroom remains available as a standalone product. Lightroom 5 is currently available with a 'perpetual license' for $79 as an upgrade or $149 for a full version.

Still, this should be especially comforting to Lightroom users who were worried about losing access to their work after canceling a CC subscription. As stated in a brief blog post, Adobe has made an effort to fulfill its promise to let users maintain access to their images and edits regardless of their subscription status. They've also gone an extra step in allowing very basic edits via the Quick Develop module. After a license expires, customers can purchase Lightroom separately and maintain all of the collections, keywords, slideshows and so forth that they created with the licensed software or at the very least continue to access their work without an active license.

It's been suggested by DAM website That DAM Book that you could even get something for nothing here by downloading the free Lightroom trial, but after the trial period ends the software essentially becomes an asset management tool with basic editing capabilities.

Comments

Folks, do I get a perpetual license by purchasing LR software at amazon? I'm just not sure if this will continue to work the same with these licensing changes. (sorry if this is too basic, but I've never purchased LR, so not sure how it normally works)

And while you're waiting, investigate Inkscape, Gimp, Krita, Blender, Scribus, Libre Office (all for $0.00). That lot can probably do most of what you need for the 'price' of a voluntary donation, often with lightning fast update cycles and direct contact with the developers! Now *that* is the way forward. Adobe's loud marketing and customer-hating practices belong in a museum.

I see this as a good thing believe it or not. For awhile nikon and canon were saying that 3rd party support was not intended for raw files and for best effect process them with propriatery software. This is detrimental they need to heartily support third party software development for there cameras and with nikon basically shipping with silkypix makes this line that you ought not use third party software tougher to sell and maybe is the beginning of nikon supporting third party software development

Because Adobe has chosen to cloud your creativity, along with their new "perpetual tithing" [Bill McGrath, love that phrase!] business model.

I need Lightroom to finish a large project I'm in the middle of, along with CS6. I can't switch to anything else this far into it. At least I have older permanent licenses. But unless Adobe backs off their new subscription-only model, I'm going to be looking for replacement software. I use Canon equipment and right now Canon's Digital Photo Professional is looking pretty good...

Alternatives like PS where you can work with layers? Corel, Pixelmator for the OSX, just to name 2 excellent alternatives. Or buy PS CS5 on eBay, you can work with that version for years and it does everything and more than you will ever need.

Microsoft persuaded me to go with the yearly licensing plan for Office by offering compelling features - mobile Word and Excel, along with 5 installs and plenty of One Drive space for file syncing across machines. I'm not worried about Microsoft going out of business and leaving all my Word and Excel files as orphans. Similarly, I'm not worried about Adobe going out of business and holding all my NEF files hostage. Lots of programs read them - even my iPad 2 reads them. The main reason I haven't gone with Adobe CC for Photographers yet is that the mobile Lightroom feature just isn't there for my mobile needs; when I'm travelling and taking a lot of photos, I want keywording early in my workflow and mobile Lightroom doesn't have it.

If Adobe ever starts struggling in the photography software market, we will all have migrated away from Lightroom long before they go out of business.

Aldus was bought by Adobe and a Pagemaker replacement project had been started by Aldus and was code-named "Shuksan". It was later code-named "K2" and was released as InDesign 1.0 in 1999. A pretty average product (still) IMHO. I miss Quark!! PS: Quark have just released v10.0 and I would buy it if I used a layout program as much as I used to. Quark essentially priced themselves out of the market (I remember it was around USD $2500 in the late 90's!! Mainly they failed to make OS X-native versions of XPress etc etc

The message is simple: who is supporting a CC system is supporting a very scary future. If Adobe will be successful with their CC, others will follow. Visa versa.It is up to you how you would like to see the future. Plenty of alternatives, so no excuse.

The 'scary' bit is that any company that moves to this model immediately becomes less motivated to innovate or serve their customers. They're getting your money, every month, and they hope you'll forget that. You could never, ever, forget when that latest grossly overpriced Adobe 'update' came along - you consciously had to decide to stay with Adobe. Now they'll gain by exploiting customer inertia. They can sit back, reduce the frequency of updates, cut back on R&D, and still not have to care too much, because it's going to be more difficult for you to leave them. All very negative, and stacked in favour of the corporation, not the customer.

Adobe cannot succeed over the medium or long term if they become grossly stagnant and overpriced, no matter what license model they are using. Their position is not that well protected, and I'm sure they know it.

Oh yes, they can. They have been grossly stagnant and overpriced for years. In the last years each PS upgrade was simply a collection of small updates that made little impact, yet charging big money for every upgrade. On top of that, Adobe forced people to buy the last upgrade otherwise users where unable to upgrade in the future, remember that little dirty trick? All the money I put into this piece of software for all these years to support them, and look how they turned their back to their customers, treating us as imbeciles, cash cows. Drain as much money from the CC-users as possible, and make sure they can go no place else if they are fed up with it.

You personally may not have liked Adobe's pricing or feature development, but obviously enough other people did to keep them in business.

If they really are offering no value over any length of time, other companies will take their customers away.

And there is nothing in the CC plan that prevents users from going someplace else. Yes, you might have to migrate some work and data to different applications, but that risk is inherent in every piece of software you use. It's a barrier to change, but in the case of Adobe's photography apps, it's not a very big one because there are well-established non-proprietary formats for pictures and for picture metadata. Adobe will have to be offering something of value to keep its photo customers.

1. We need to stop taking this personally.2. We need to get a sense of proportion (we are not starving or in fear of our lives).3. Adobe are just doing what companies do.4. Limited functionality after you stop paying shouldn't change anything - it just means you can do what you should do *after* you stop paying instead of just before (migrate).5. Always have an exit strategy - no system is around forever.6. Mike Ronesia below has the right attitude:-)

We can't trust *any* of them - that's the point. Companies have always seen 'trust' as one of many business tools and on occasion will decide that losing it is worthwhile. We are fooling ourselves if we think some other company won't ever do this.

Oh I agree with you. Which is why quasi-monopolies are bad. The consumer's ONLY trump card is competition. And thankfully, just as Apple screwed up Final Cut Pro and sent people away, Adobe is now leaving room for many competitors, and making us take another look at them. I basically arrange my photos in folders, so if I stopped using Lightroom tomorrow nothing would change. I'd just do more in Capture One. Same with Microsoft. I save all my files in RTF because I refuse to be locked in to Word.And have done for years.

Well, I am one of those customers who took this personally. I have been using a very old version of Bridge and PSE and decided to upgrade a couple of months ago. Lightroom was the most appealing path to take. But along came the subscription model for CC. Though LR was still excluded from this extremely customer-unfriendly subscription-scheme, I didn't trust Adobe to keep LR a normal piece of software. And right I was. My money went to DXO...Ad "no system is around forever": true, but no system is around shorter than a subscription system that ends abruptly when YOUR money stops flowing out to the company.

"Q2 was the last quarter we broadly offered perpetual volume licensing of CS6 through the channel. As a result, there was high demand by customers serviced by the channel who wanted to add to their perpetual seat capacity. This drove the upside relative to the high-end of our total targeted Q2 revenue range. We believe these customers will migrate to Creative Cloud over time. Beginning in Q3, the channel is solely focused on licensing Creative Cloud."Adobe CFO Mark Garrett.

Seems pretty clear those statements were about CS6 specifically, not about all Adobe software and were made back when the transition to CC was still relatively new.

Adobe still offers many perpetual licenses: Lightroom, Elements, Premiere Elements and also many pro and commercial applications like Acrobat, Framemaker et. al.

In fact, as of right now, a quick scan of their product page shows about 60 desktop software titles available with around 33 of them being sold with perpetual licenses -- more than half of their desktop products are available with perpetual licenses.

I think it's easy to see that Adobe will sell its titles via whatever license model they feel will produce the best business results for each title, on a case-by-case basis, and it's not automatically true that subscription is the answer for every program or target market.

I couldn't quote the whole speech. But if you read it on their investor page, they do not seem to be planning to leave much room for perpetual licenses. In fact, almost their entire investor speeches were about how Creative Cloud is the best thing since sliced bread. Their overall plan is to herd us all to the "Adobe Marketing Cloud", and they don't indicate they intend to let many stragglers escape.

What kind of mutant talks like this .... ?? it sounds like corporate gibberish

"Q2 was the last quarter we broadly offered perpetual volume licensing of CS6 through the channel. As a result, there was high demand by customers serviced by the channel who wanted to add to their perpetual seat capacity. This drove the upside relative to the high-end of our total targeted Q2 revenue range. We believe these customers will migrate to Creative Cloud over time. Beginning in Q3, the channel is solely focused on licensing Creative Cloud."Adobe CFO Mark Garrett.

I'm not exactly sure how all of this will play out, but I will worry about it when I have a camera that LR5 doesn't support. The internet sucks where I live, so I'll most likely avoid the cloud if I can. I'm sure there are other good options out there, though I do like LR.

The cracked version of Photoshop CC was available ONE DAY after the legit one. It does not surprise me. The irony is that, as so often in the past, the pirated version is more user friendly than the legit one. I always buy legit software, but I have known many people fed up with usability issues from "dongles", "copy protection", anti-piracy measures, and so on, actually buy a legit licence and actually run a pirated one on their workstations.

I think one of the biggest mistakes by Adobe was using the word Cloud. It seems to have lead to many people thinking that they need a permanent internet connection and that all of their images will be stored offline. You don't and they're not.

No but you need an internet connection every 90 days, or less if month to month, to validate the software licenses and subscription.

For now "cloud" is just a trendy term that Adobe has adopted.

Remember a few years back when publications like the New York Times, in "articles", were furiously trying to market Google's cloud alternatives to say MS Office. For now Adobe is just trying out that stupid language.

The problem is that in 5 years if Adobe manages to get everyone on board with the "cloud", Adobe may try to force computers to become dumb terminals--at least for Adobe's software. So sort like mainframe systems, or at home today, much of what is done with the cable box.

There is nothing wrong with Adobe offering subscription software as an option, but as the only option, subscriptions won't fly in the long term.

The CAD software I use has had the option of subscription for years, but one can also purchase the license.

"No but you need an internet connection every 90 days, or less if month to month, to validate the software licenses and subscription." Yes, but you don't need a fast connection, just a connection which everybody using this site has.

I am afraid I disagree with the rest of your post, especially "subscriptions won't fly in the long term". I believe, on the contrary, that all significant software will over the next decade become a subscription service.

To get updates you do need a fast internet connection, even if infrequently. Adobe makes downloading+installing the update as a file for installation at a later time a pain. So my experience has been, since the release of ACR 8.X, that one has to have access to a fast internet connection with the computer running PhotoShop CS6.

All right, you can disagree. However I did say the problem is subscription only, not a subscription option. And in fact I'm all for the rental option being available, I'm not at all in support of rental only though.

Oh how wrong you are ..... Downloading an executable is very handy. You just download the file wherever you can find good internet (work, friends house ...) and then copy to a flash drive and install on your internet challenged computer at you leisure.

Try that with Steam or other similar service .... you have to move your whole computer to a internet location.

And as for updating only the changed parts of LR in a small update. That has been the source of a million bad user experiences where you need to wipe the program with special software or reinstall Windows.

Adobe MUST allow users to access their own edited images, with or without a subscription. Anything less would be outrageous. As for letting former subscribers continue to use a version of Lightroom with limited functions... this is neither here not there.

I see this getting a lot of likes, which is really sad. It indicates an almost complete lack of knowledge of what went into photography in the past. We chose our film emulsions for their responses. We chose our developments. We chose our papers (and processing for them). We dodged and burned and scraped and masked and sharpened and softened and bleached and spotted and sometimes even airbrushed and rephotographed. Last I checked, you couldn't easily swap sensors in most digital cameras, and dodging and burning on an inkjet printer while it's printing is a real pain in the buttocks; post-processing takes the place of not only the darkroom but an awful lot of the decisions that we once had to make before the shutter was clicked. Photoshop (and other image editors) didn't change what we do, it just changed how and when we do it.

Yes, they did - and they make better software now, with fewer work-arounds and kludges needed to do the same work we've always done, and with better results to boot. Do you need the latest and greatest? Only if you want to do a better job faster, with more immediate feedback. Don't romanticize a past that never was; the REAL past was expensive, smelly, seriously hard on the eyes, took days to perfect a single "straight" photo, and involved a lot of swearing.

Complain about the licensing if you want to - I pretty much agree with that - but not about the software. It's necessary for "real" photography, and CC 2014 is a significant step up from CS 5.5.

In life, the vast majority of people think short term, and recognize but ignore long term consequences. Even those who pride themselves as long-term thinkers actually don't act on what they know. Hence, far-sighted people are very rare in society. Thus Adobe's CC lulls people with short term benefits.

For myself, I'm not walking into the trap of LR's false assurances that it is won't become CC-only. I'm going with either Capture One or DXO.

I did some comparison. In IQ is according to my results, Capture one far the best. I was comparing IQ output from Capture one, lightroom, Bible, NX2. I used Nikon D200 raw files. Result was soooo amazing from capture one, that I bought it immediately and never regret.

I have used Lightroom from day one and recently I compared Aperture, Capture One, Lightroom and DXO because I wanted to know what was the best RAW processor for me.

Basically...

I found Capture One to have a more pleasing colour. I found DXO to be counter-intuitive and clunky. I found DXO's output to be slightly better than LR which was, apart from the colour, to be better than Capture One. Although I like some features of Aperture, it came last in everything. Probably it is a good job Aperture is being retired.

It's hysterical for anyone to be claiming the two million subscribers for the whole Creative Cloud suite is a success when Photoshop CS6 ALONE has almost five million downloads from just one download site and Adobe Photoshop Extended has 19 million. And this is from just ONE site, and not even Adobe's own. Adobe have always tried to bury their figures for individual users but it is tens of multiples of two million ... just on ONE product. And that's not even counting the pirates.

After a little more digging: Adobe, in its investor relations reports, DOES acknowledge a user base of 12.8 million for legacy point products and suites. EXCLUDING CREATIVE CLOUD SUBSCRIPTIONS. So 2.3 million in one year of "special offer" reduced prices is not the huge success the Adobe evangelists are pretending.

That is the EXISTING installed user base. Three million will represent less than 20% of total users. That's small anyway you look at it, despite the evangelists. And again, this is not counting the people they will drive away to other software or who will turn to the pirates.

If LR ever goes to being exclusively CC, what are folks' guesses as to what LR only would go for on subscription basis (ie. without PS as part of it)? I'd guess about $3 or $4 per month for a prior user/owner of LR.

Or is it surmised we'd be forced to the $120/year even if all we want is LR and don't need the editing tools of PS. Or perhaps they'll come up with a LR/Elements CC deal ($5 per month)

All those people who locked into Adobe's Cloud based CC programs; well it will be all your fault for allowing Adobe to have this control over us. It was a very, very silly thing for you to do. And you have also ruined it for the rest of us who didn't fall for it. So thanks for nothing :(

When Adobe goes bankrupt, or is bought, as all companies eventually do/are, NONE of this will hold. You'll lose the deals and/or whatever you have stored on their cloud. Hopefully, you'll get a few minutes warning to download before the end but don't count on it. The "cloud" is a curse.

It's hysterical for anyone to be claiming the two million subscribers for the whole Creative Cloud suite is a success when Photoshop CS6 ALONE has almost five million downloads from just one download site and Adobe Photoshop Extended has 19 million. And this is from just ONE site, and not even Adobe's own. Adobe have always tried to bury their figures for individual users but it is tens of multiples of two million ... just on ONE product. And that's not even counting the pirates.

GaryJP there is no getting away from the fact that 53 percent of Adobe’s Q2 revenue was from recurring sources such as Creative Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud. This figure is up from Q1 which was also up from Q4 of last year. Every set of figures show the percentage is rising every 3 months.

Perpetual until it suits them to move to subscription… such as the time Apple ends Aperture for good.With no viable competition, Adobe can do EXACTLY as they please, when it tickles their fancy…The way I read this piece of news is this: There is already a LR CC even it was not supposed to ever exist. Ever. (Adobe’s words) So, let’s all trust a corporation to keep their word.

Sure, I believe that…Funny thing is this will be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. With only relatively few people believing this promise will be kept, Adobe will have no issue dropping perpetual licensing.Let’s not kid ourselves here. Adobe will do whatever they feel strengthens their bottom line (even they might be wrong… otherwise successful companies made questionable decisions in the past…). It remains to be seen. Forgive me if I’m not holding my breath.

Nikon have come out with new software: Capture NX-D. Only a Beta at the moment but looks like an updated and vastly (?)improved version of Capture NX2. Has similarities to LR. Can't see them adding Canon Raw though.

NX-D is a vastly inferior product to NX2. They had to drop NX2 because it incorporates Nik Software's wonderful control points and Nikon's license to use them has expired, following the acquisition of Nik by Google.

Nikon has effectively abandoned high end post processing software. Which is why many Nikon users now find themselves having to embrace Lightroom. Which is also very good, by the way, but many of us preferred NX2 and would have rather stayed with it.

I use CS6 only and concerned that when I get my next camera the RAW converter may not be compatible as I believe there will be no more updates for CS6. Does any one know if this is correct. I am happy to stay with CS6 for some years yet and although I can use Canon DPP to convert my RAW files I find it very clunky and without the great features of Adobe. What are the alternatives as I am not going CC. I guess I will be stuck with DPP. Any ideas please

If you aren't using Lightroom and are happy with the process engine in ACR in CS6, you can always use the DNG converter utility. Basically, that takes in the raw sensor data, along with a baked-in version of the Bayer matrix/camera profile and the profile for the lens (if the lens is in the Adobe db; custom profiles are not supported), and stuffs it all into one file so that it can be processed by an older version of the raw processing engine that doesn't support the camera. Of course, this will only work for as long as the camera you're using is still using a Bayer-pattern colour filter array, so it's not completely future-proof. And there are quite a few alternative raw processors out there, some of them quite good. (If you're a Mac type, you can always use Hasselblad's Phocus, which is a free download, at least for as long as the basic raw codecs are part of the Mac's OS.)

But what do you honestly expect them to say? No company can meaningfully promise 'forever'. Use what is best and most appropriate for you at the time and have a planned migration strategy - it's just normal risk management.

Sure, quite possibly:-) - but I still don't see how we can reasonably expect them (or anyone) to say "forever". There's a lot of ire about this, and a lot of "I'm never buying Adobe; X would never do this" - well they *all* would if they thought it was in their business interest. So *whatever* systems we use - amateur or professional - we need to have a plan to switch if necessary.

Most people that like CC seem to be resigning themselves to "well that's the way it is" rather than "that's a good idea". Adobe change their financial model to suite themselves. Lightroom will go rental eventually. It is currently an anomaly and must be a pain to maintain outside and inside of CC. I and many others are hoping for an alternative.

Likewise. Seriously what is the advantage of renting? Before answering, I know all the 'advantages' and they are all nonsense. I use the cloud for trivial data but my pictures... NO! If only there were a competitor but unfortunately Apple gave up.

While it is Adobe's fault for their naming conventions, CC only has an option to use cloud storage. Primary functionality is exactly the same as always while your subscription is good (and you have Internet access once in a while) - your data on your hard drives with your copy of the program that you run on your own computer.

While updates may be more rapid, that is no advantage to the user. My non-Adobe software updates itself automatically at any time. Which could be daily if needed. I never notice it happening until a new function appears.

Prior Photoshop cc we were told that if you upgraded to CS6 you would be eligible to upgrade to CS7, but we would not be able to upgrade from CS5. As such many made the upgrade earlier than planned. The following year they changed the rules again. The one thing I have learned from that is that I cannot rely on information from Adobe. To me it was a case of lesson learnt.

Meanwhile, at Cloud City...Darth Adobe: Camerissian. Take Photoshop and Lightroom to the Adobe mothership. Camerissian: You said they'd be left at the computer under my supervision! Darth Adobe: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

i love my 9.99 subscription. Ive pretty much always had to pay this much for photoshop and lightroom to be up to date. and the new mobile features are great. and photoshop now runs on my mac and pc with the same subscirption

So you're saying that there's no real difference between the current rental model and how it was previously? If so then what's the point? I went from CS4 to CS6, skipping CS5 since the improvements seemed trivial. That way I saved money and more importantly I had choice and control. CC removes both.

No, that's not what he's saying, since the non-subscription Lightroom doesn't have mobile sync and is only licensed for Mac or PC only, not both. He's saying he likes thoese additional features CC has the non-CC doesn't.

The subscription model is great and saves me money as well. Before it would cost me $249.00 every 18 months to upgrade to the newer versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. Now it's $9.99 a month or $180.00 every 18 months. Works for me.

To jurgenvogt. Seriously? You upgraded every 18 months? What happens when either you don't need to upgrade because it's unnecessary or you just don't want to? You can skip it and save money. Now you have no choice. Isn't your logic flawed?

That's what we'd like Adobe to allow. The fact they do not is the strongest indicator of all that they KNOW most users will not choose the CC model if given free choice. No one wants to take your CC away from you. We just don't want the alternative taken away from us.

MichaelStringer - you are correct. I was thinking of Photoshop licensing by mistake. Still, that doesn't affect my point: There are benefits to the subscription and if someone wants those, they may decide CC is worth it.

There are photographers who just want to take pictures and see them on one computer. They should not get the cloud.

There are other photographers who live in the 2014 multi-device high--sharing world, for them CC might be worth it.

He's speaking from general perspective. The whole cloud thing is way overblown. It's useful for niche stuff, like smuggling bytes into another country, or professional data exchange, etc. Why would anybody privately and on purpose give his data to someone he/she doesn't know is beyond me.

"Why would anybody privately and on purpose give his data to someone he/she doesn't know is beyond me."

If your retirement funds, stock investments, etc. are entrusted to a company with a web site that you access and manage online, or if you store your photos on ANY web site not owned by you with a CDN with overseas nodes, then the concept isn't actually beyond you. I don't like the cloud either, but I'm just sayin'...

I do not think they are talking about security issues but about reliability issues. If those company websites go down, your money and investments still exist. Your cloud data does not. I use Dropbox for convenience, but I am damned if I'd store my ONLY copy of any file or photograph on it.

Not good enough. My Photoshop CS6 will never expire, as long as it runs on my computer's OS. I paid 210€ for the upgrade, so for the next 5 years it costs me projected 3.50€ per month. I could use it 10 years - that amounts to 1.75€ per month. You'll never beat that, Adobe.

Just as a side note: your accounting is incomplete. In figuring the cost of Photoshop perpetual, you have to include your initial purchase price, not just the upgrade prices. At some point in the past you paid 700-800€ for your first copy, right? That counts (although figuring out how much it counts is not straightforward).

Are you saying Adobe is going to refund everyones initial purchase price as well as the cost of all upgrades when subscribing to CC? If not Popov's math is actually overblown because at this point anyone owning CS6 can use it indefinitely for free as the money has already been spent. Your math only works for a new subscriber deciding whether to purchase CS6 or do the cloud thingy.

My problem with LR is that when they created mobile version I didn't realize the 30 day trial period started running until I started using it. So it expired, and I never got to try it even once. That did not convince me that I should subscribe for the privilege of trying it out.

CC is fine for professionals who can expense their subscription fee. For vast majority of photographers who upgrade their cameras every two years, and Lightroom's current price at $80, the max a person would shell out for an annual subscription of CC is $40. For people like me who can only afford to upgrade the camera around 5 years, the CC is only valued at $16/year, not the $99/year Adobe is charging.

This means most people would either stop upgrading to newer cameras that Lightroom 5 can no longer support or stop using Lightroom all together. It looks like I would be using my current cameras until they break. This move would indirectly slow the camera sales by a bit, and probably start making people with new cameras more likely to accept out-of-camera JPEGs, instead of processing RAWs using a software.

Jogger most of us have not climbed up Adobes backside and call them "momma" like you apparently did. there is no DRAMA here at all. there is only fact. The CC BS is just that, marketing BS that is extremely overpriced. For those of us who happily updated PS and LR every two or three versions, and only then because we bought new cameras, the CC is a huge effing ripoff. For people like you, well maybe momma takes care of you...

I think CC only makes sense if you want to use the big momma Photoshop. I did the math, and historically it would over 20 years if you skip every other PS upgrade (PS CS2, PS CS4, PS CS6, etc) for buying permanent licenses to be cheaper than what CC is.

For LR, I agree it doesn't make sense to do CC (and I fervently hope Adobe never forces us into CC). However I disagree that it will be all gloom and doom. Adobe does offer a free DNG converter that it always keeps up to date with the latest cameras. That means using an older version is just more annoying because you need to run all your files through the converter before importing into an old version.

Even if that were not the case... you doomsday scenario of slowly camera sales and making people accept JPEGs is silly. There are several other programs that do handle RAW images (AfterShot, even Picasa).

BTW... according to your gear list (I had a Canon S2 IS!)... you definitely have been buying more than one camera per 5 years ;)

W5JCK... Can you update Photoshop from a copy two versions behind? If not, then from my calculations... it is still cheaper with CC (I still hate being force into CC). Here's my math.

Looking at the PS historical update path... a new version of PS comes out every 18-24 months... so upgrading ever third version is about 5 years for around $700. Let's assume one Lightroom upgrade as well... for around $800.

CC costs $10 a month, or a $120 a year... so after 5 years that's... $600. Maybe there are some cheaper upgrade paths that I don't know of?

This of course assumes that PS and LR development would remain at the same rate, which I don't think it is.

@ W5JCK - simple solution... dont subscribe! You'll happily drop $2k every 2yrs on a new body but $240 for the same 2years on the best editing software out there is a ripoff... rich! And no... no drama in your post at all!

CC is never 'fine'. I'm a professional I suppose but I haven't been fooled into thinking they're rental model is a good idea. A few years ago nobody would have liked it but Adobe have done a good propaganda job on a lot of you.

I agree with you. But it makes no sense that Adobe gives out, for free, the latest Camera Raw information in their DNG converter, while those of us that have paid to use LR or PS aren't given the courtesy of being able to load the newest Camera Raw profiles into our legacy versions of LR or PS. I have never felt high regard for Adobe just because of this single fact. Giving the updates away to non paying customers but forcing their paying customers to upgrade versions when getting a new camera shows how little Adobe respects their paying customers. As a paying customer you are only $$$$$$ to them. As a non-customer, "Here you go, here's the latest version of Camera Raw." Convert away!

MichaelStringer, you mentioned you went from CS4 to CS6. How much did that upgrade cost and when did you get each? Prior to that you said you paid $500 to upgrade from Elements (which I assume was like $50). I'm just trying to compare the CC cost numbers.

My set up has been Olympus Viewer + LR, so I don't need to run the RAWs through one more software in the workflow. I've used DxO as part of the workflow, but I gave up on it since OV does everything better. What OV is lacking is cataloging and user-interface. That's where LR comes in. I select my photos using LR as loupe and then only if it requires extra process, I export them into OV, because OV loads photos slowly. I mostly use LR for cataloging reason (batch tag, add location info, etc., and exports output to website and local storage). I do like some parts of LR, that's why I can overlook its quirks (and LR has tons of weird bugs). It has value to me, but not $99/year is all I am saying. Especially I still have CS5 which I only use a fraction of its features. Choosing gears (and software is part of the gears) is a lot of compromise between requirements and budget. This isn't a fantasy talk where everyone always have the latest gears as if money isn't a consideration.

@Arvin Chang. I have a Adobe Design Standard box. In 2002 bought CS box, upgrade CS2 (CS3 free), upgrade CS4 (CS5 free), upgrade CS5.5 (CS6 free). 12 years approximately - $ 3600. Full CC (which has programs which do not need) the first year of the promotion around $ 492 (in Europe is more expensive). The next 11 years the total to $ 996 is about $ 12,444. This is just cheap CC edition Adobe. Photoshop + Lightroom for $ 10 this offer is not for people but for the investors. Is expected to show an increase in users CC ...

@JackFM, I'm sorry. I didn't quite understand why the most recent pricing of PS+LR for $10/month option is "not for people." If you only need PS+LR (which seems like a more common use case) then you would have only paid $1440 vs $3600.

Do you agree IF you only need LR and PS... then CC would have been cheaper? Much in the same way full CC "has programs which do not need" CS always had programs a lot of people that many photographers do not need as well.

Again, I personally own permanent licenses, but the fact remains it does seem like CC is cheaper for many people.

One question: Does LR CC change the database in any way to make it incompatible with LR 5? Because that would completely blow their concession out of the water ...

Edit: It seems like there will be a perpetual license upgrade to LR 6 at some point. One supposes that it would be acceptable to try LR CC for a year or two and then drop back to perpetual license version, even if forced to upgrade to maintain compatibility. But since Adobe have a poor backward compatibility record, this remains a point of concern.

I say yes. I pay .30 a day for LR and PS CC. It's one of the cheapest things I do on a daily basis. It's fine if you don't want the cloud, but Adobe has made clear that LR will remain cloud free if you prefer and has even made it partially functionally if you opt out.

+2. This is my hobby and Photoshop is the product I like best. The reality is, I've been paying pretty much the same thing since Photoshop CS with each 18 month Photoshop upgrade at $180-$195. Whether it's $180-$195 once every 18 months or $10.81 per month, I care not.

Tbh honest, I would not be able to afford Ps if it weren't for CC. $10 a month is hard to beat. Compare that to $6-800 Photoshop used to cost, Adobe has made getting their software into the hands of the average joe, a lot easier and cheaper. But h8rz gon h8!

"A. Future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely."

Now I'm confused. You can choose NOT to buy in to the CC-thing with newer versions of LR?

Oh I get, you can download LR and use it, but you need to subscribe to Develop and Maps modules for it to be useful as a raw developer. This is quite sneaky of Adobe and I hate them for it. They are bending the truth here to make it sound like nothing has changed. Oh Gawd!

As far as anyone knows, Tom's claim that "future versions of Lightroom will be made available via traditional perpetual licenses indefinitely" is true, and I can't imagine a reason to doubt that statement.

The one thing that has changed is, the CC versions of LR will stay partially working if your CC subscription expires. If you have a perpetual version, then nothing has changed.

Lightroom is available to purchase in two forms: subscription and perpetual. Both forms will continue to be sold and upgraded in the future.The perpetual version has no time limits or subscription requirements.The subscription version degrades to a limited use version that allows export and minor edits when your subscription expires.

@Samuel, it's because the pace of innovation has slowed to a crawl but shareholder demands for earnings growth remains. Adobe understands there is no value-based rationalization for users to upgrade PS/LR, outside of support for newer camera models. Their strategy response for this fully-matured software market was to lock people into forced upgrade cycles.

@skytripper - "Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion."Adobe holding a gun to your head to use CC? Threatened violence to you or yours? Yeah, didn't think so... exaggerate much?